


Little Tiny Fanfic

by LemonKith



Category: Barenaked Ladies (Band)
Genre: Gen, and a cat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-14
Updated: 2017-08-14
Packaged: 2018-12-15 06:16:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 9,553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11800137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LemonKith/pseuds/LemonKith
Summary: It all began with a lost cat and a chemistry set...(A continuation of the unfinished fic originally posted on BarenakedBliss by Coneycat)





	1. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story is a continuation of one originally stared by an author called Coneycat on the old BarenakedBliss site that was never finished. I loved what was there so much though that I wanted to keep it going and give it an ending. I hope the original author doesn't mind!
> 
> There were five chapters of the original story so this story begins at chapter 6. I won't post the first five chapters here as they're not mine to post but you can read them here: [Little Tiny Fanfic Chapters 1-5](http://web.archive.org/web/20030919063745/http://www.barenakedbliss.net:80/Fanfic/LittleTinyFanfic/chapter1.shtml)  
> ^^Make sure you read it first or this story won't make any sense!^^
> 
>  
> 
> This is entirely meant to be just a bit of fun, but as it is real person fiction if anyone featured in this story or closely connected to them is uncomfortable with this please tell me and I'll take it down.

There are many different ways to wake up.

Fin would have preferred about 87% of them to this one.

Something was tugging on his ear like a self-aware earring trying to escape – Tyler swinging up and down on it like a monkey.

Down by his fringe, the world’s smallest tsunami was hitting him with intermittent but incessant waves of lukewarm water – Jim and Kevin had dragged out and toppled a water bottle from Kevin’s bag and were using the cap to throw small lumps of water at him every minute or so.

Over on one cheek, wet sandpaper was being repeatedly applied – The cat was licking him.

And to aid that third part of his wake-up call – “Get it closer to his mouth, Steve!” “No way! His breath reeks!”

Fin stirred slightly, startling Ed and Steve from their work applying the contents of Fin’s sandwich to his face in order to keep the cat interested. “He’s awake, guys!” Ed yelled, or more squeaked to Fin’s ears, calling a cessation to the various activities (Cat not included.)

“Thank God! My arms were about to give out and my toga’s soaked!”

“You should work out more then, Kev.”

“Says you, you big ape!”

Fin groaned as he sat up, both from the fact Kevin and Tyler were already arguing within five seconds of him being awake and because if he’d thought Kevin’s voice was kind of nasal before, it had nothing on the grating, shrill squeak it was now.

After a few moments, in which the band clustered together on the floor before him looking up and the cat took to washing his face after his latest ‘meal’, Fin could finally believe what he was seeing. “...What... happened to you guys?”

Four tiny arms pointed to one end of the line – A move akin to what Kevin would receive during ‘Sound of Your Voice’ years later – with a shrill but loud, “Tyler did it!”

“Did not!” was quickly rebutted before, “Well, okay, maybe. But it was the cat’s fault!”

The cat chose that moment to pause in his washing. Tyler hid behind Jim.

“No, but you’re so...” Fin crouched down, head nearly to the hotel carpet floor to look at his ‘band’. What Swift had written in _Gulliver’s Travels_ still proved true: a person larger than you has all their imperfections magnified to the point of unpleasant, but people smaller have them shrunk so that anyone becomes irresistibly and impossibly, “cute.”

Tiny hands and voices tried to assail his face. Fin quickly lifted back up.

The Ladies were in the meanwhile muttering amongst themselves and rubbing their ears; Fin’s voice had become incredibly deep and loud to them, quite unpleasantly so. There wasn’t much they could do though, except to tell him to stay up there while he spoke to them.

“Okay. So... how did you guys get so small?” Fin thought it barely needed to be asked but there you go.

“Tyler brought a chemistry set at Toys R’ Us,” Kevin started.

Ed took over, “He mixed up something that reeked worse than his jockstrap does after hockey-”

“Fuck you!”

“Tripped over the cat,” Jim continued.

“And spilt it on Kevin,” Steve finished. “Then it got all over us while we were helping him so we shrunk too.”

Okay. But Fin was still missing one vital piece. “You mean... Tyler made a shrinking potion?”

“Yeah.”

“Out of a child’s chemistry set?”

“Yeah.”

“Tyler whose extent of scientific prowess extends to shuffling his feet along the carpet and touching doorknobs to shock himself?”

“Hey!”

“It’s one of those idiot savant things or something,” Steve guessed; “a genius could never have come up with it, but you let an idiot with no knowledge of right or wrong try it...”

“It’s like vulcanised rubber, popsicles, penicillin or dynamite – Sometimes idiots invent stuff by idiotic accident,” Ed added. Everyone looked pointedly at him. “What?”

“Nerd.”

Tyler’s bigger issue was with, “Will you guys stop using the word ‘idiot’?”

“Do you have any idea what you mixed together?” Fin asked, figuring that might be at least a starting point for dealing with yet another band ‘adventure’.

Tyler shook his tiny head. “I was trying to make something that smelt revolting. I just threw all the smelliest ingredients in together.”

“Great...” Fin muttered, sitting cross-legged to frown heavily about this.

The Ladies had their own discussion while he was doing so. “Well, at least it’s nothing dangerous,” Kevin tried to look on the bright side. “I mean, aside from the whole cat thing.” He gave the now loaf-shaped cat a glare.

“I don’t know; some chemistry sets in the 50s included actual radioactive material,” Jim mused.

They all stared at him, then checked their hands for glowing. “I thought radioactivity made you grow,” Steve said.

“What?”

“You know, like the Hulk.”

“That’s only when he’s angry,” Kevin pointed out.

“And look at Spiderman,” Ed also had to add: “same size.”

“Yeah, but it was the spider that was radioactive,” Steve argued back. “Was the spider bigger than normal?”

“Wasn’t Godzilla made by radioactivity?” Kevin asked nervously, starting to switch sides. “Or that giant moth-man thing?”

“What are you talking about, Kev?”

“Have you been staying up watching midnight movies _again_?” Ed asked.

Kevin looked sheepish. “I haven’t been sleeping well...”

“Well no shit if you’re up watching things about giant moth-men all night!”

Meanwhile Jim and Tyler, “What are we going to do about the show tomorrow?” Jim started.

“I guess we could shrink our instruments,” Tyler suggested.

“And all the amps and sound stuff?”

“Shrink that too.”

“And the technical crew to run them?”

“Well, you’d have to,” Tyler stated obviously.

“And the audience?” Jim kept up.

“Well hey, you go to our concerts, you expect to get splashed by some revolting yellow stuff.” Jim raised a perturbed eyebrow. “I meant Kraft Dinner.”

“Oh right,” Jim said, not revealing what he _had_ been thinking off. “Man, if any of that comes sailing at us like this it’d give us more than just a black eye; we’d have a whole black body.”

“That’s racist.”

“I didn’t mean like that!” Jim protested.

The squabbling continued because, heck, it was actually the least of Fin’s problems for once. It all resolved itself well-enough when the cat decided he needed to intervene in his ‘kitten’s’ play-fighting, holding down the members pulling on each other’s togas and then pushing the rest together into a lump he could curl around.

“Oh great. _This_ again?” Steve griped.

“Remember that photo shoot where we tied ourselves together in ropes?” Jim asked, reliving a very similarly crushed and uncomfortable position now.

“Hey, guys,” Tyler said after a few moments of grumbling and struggling, “how much do they, uh, _take off_ when they fix a male cat?”

That stopped everyone’s fussing. “Just the nuts, Ty, like any animal,” Ed spoke from experience.

“Oh, well, I think they missed slightly with the knife on this one,” Tyler said, giving the furry back end he was near an odd look.

“You mean...?”

“I mean either this cat has the world’s tiniest penis, or we just accidentally covered ‘Dude Looks Like a Lady’ in reverse.”

“Oh jeez!” Ed started struggling again.

“Well done, Ed,” Steve congratulated him flatly.

“Not my fault!”

“Well, you didn’t even notice his- her- its collar until Fin did so I’m not surprised you got its sex wrong.”

“Maybe it _is_ a boy-cat,” Kevin spoke up cheerfully. “You don’t know; there could be transgender animals!”

“Kevin, let’s worry about if the cat needs a sex change after we return to our original size,” Ed said.

“Instead of being the size of a cat’s penis,” Tyler had to add.

“Thanks for that image, Ty...” Jim complained.

“Well, if he- she was going to pick one of us she’d pick you.”

“Why me?!” Jim squawked in protest of his new fate.

“You’re the longest.”

“Guys,” a booming voice interrupted, once the cat had intervened in the play-fighting again, “if you’re done being ridiculous, I have an idea.” Actually, Fin had had the idea a few minutes ago; he had been enjoying the sight and conversation before him too much though.

Fin left the Ladies wondering what said idea was as he exited the room. He also left them discussing that since they called themselves ‘Ladies’, it wasn’t that weird they’d been calling the cat a boy.

So, in deference to Kevin’s insistence the cat liked it and was transgender, they decided to continue calling the cat a ‘he’.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I made the point about the cat's sex because male cats have very little or nothing to do with caring for kittens, to my knowledge, and thus all the 'kitten' behaviour wasn't quite accurate. But in deference to the original author, and because I'm trans and like the idea, the cat will continue to be referred to as a 'he'.


	2. Chapter 7

What Fin’s idea was, was tiny.

No, not that ‘tiny’. Tiny.

Rob ‘Tiny’ Menegoni looked down at the cat curled up on the hotel room floor, whilst receiving another reminder to accept the bizarreness he was about to experience from Fin who re-locked the door.

After a moment studying the cat, Tiny crouched down to it. He put his hand out to the cat’s face, letting it be sniffed, rubbed and then licked. That allowed him access to move aside the fur and thereby expose- “...Wow.” He actually laughed.

If Tiny had seemed big before- “You got Tiny?” Ed squeaked at Fin. “Oh, I see. Because we’re ‘tiny’ the power of irony will restore us to full size.”

“No,” Fin countered, “I got Tiny because he’s most practised cleaning up Tyler’s messes.”

Well, they couldn’t argue with that one.

Having taken his time examining the full set of five tiny heads, Tiny picked one out gently, mainly by the toga, to set on his palm and talk to closer up. “ _You_ did this, Tyler?”

Tyler huffed, readjusting the toga that had been pulled out-of-place. “It wasn’t like I _meant_ to...”

“So what exactly did you do?” Tiny asked.

Tyler went over the same lack of information he’d been able to give to Fin, along with similar shouting at the others for their unhelpful comments, finishing with, “So, unless you’re some sort of secret Chemistry guru, or trained in the craziest kinds of pyrotechnics...”

“Hmm...” Tiny studied him again, rubbing his chin. “Well, if we can’t solve this at least it’ll be easier for me to keep track of you-”

“Hey!”

“-and I’ll be able to make new drumsticks out of two halves of a toothpick whenever you break them-”

“I don’t break drumsticks! ...Not that many at least!”

“-but since I don’t fancy having to change such tiny drum skins, let’s find a way to change you back.”

“Well, hurry up,” Tyler huffed as politely as he could; “if we shrink anymore we’ll end up as small as the Tragically Hip’s following outside of Canada...”

“All right! All right! Let your humble servant think for a moment.” Tiny took yet another look at tiny-Tyler muttering an apology to him, and then the others still snugged up inside the tummy fur of the cat. Something in Tyler’s words gave him an idea. “Have you been shrinking more as time goes on then?”

“No, we shrunk instantly to this size and then stopped,” Tyler answered.

“And what happened to the stuff you spilt on you? Did it soak into your skin or just dry on you?”

“Uh...” Tyler started examining his body. Down below, similar investigations ensued where fur wasn’t obstructing matters. “I think it just dried on us,” Tyler offered. “What about you guys?”

“Yeah, I’d say so too,” Ed reported. “Kevin was all wet when I picked him up after he first shrank.”

“And I was all cold after we shrank,” Kevin added; “that’s why we made the togas.”

“But why didn’t our clothes shrink if they got the potion all over them too?” Jim mused.

No one really had the time to answer that, simply to be grateful they didn’t also have to find a solution for returning them to full size as well. As for the five Ladies who _did_ need such a procedure- “Did you think about washing it off?” Tiny asked, both to the band and Fin.

“Washing those five is not something I ever want to have to think about,” Fin said as his excuse.

The Ladies though, “Could it be that simple?”

“Couldn’t hurt to try.”

“Unless this stuff reacts badly to water or something.”

“Nothing reacts badly to water, Ed.”

“You ever seen potassium dropped into a water bath?” Ed countered. “Or water dropped onto a cat?” Somehow the cat recognised that word and gave Ed an extra pat with his paw.

“Well, considering the other option is making a new potion formula and hoping against all hell it’s the antidote,” Steve said, “which, by the way, knowing our luck we’d probably end up spilling on the cat and therefore end up with an even bigger problem on our hands-”

“Kitten Kong!” Kevin laughed, very pleased to get a joke in before the moment had passed.

“-I say we go with that,” Steve finished.

Everyone nodded.

Tiny already had Tyler. He also took Ed and Steve while Fin took Jim and Kevin, after the fun of extracting the other four from the cat. The cat tried to follow them into the bathroom but this was a strictly no-fans, no-pets showing: togas were about to come off and five Barenaked Ladies were about to get wild and wet in a bathtub together.

“This definitely isn’t part of my job description...” Fin sighed yet again.


	3. Chapter 8

“Shall we put them all in together?”

“Well, if we don’t then we have to spend longer washing them.”

“But when they get big-”

“It’s not like they’ve never been in a bathtub together before,” Fin said. Tiny raised quite an eyebrow. “Don’t ask,” was all Fin would say.

“You guys want to go in together?” Tiny decided just to ask the band.

He got various, “Sure,” and, “Yeah,” responses so placed them all into the far end of the bath from the tap together. After putting in the plug, and taking their disrobed togas for safe-keeping – “They really do look like tiny, pink mice. Ugh,” Fin shuddered – Tiny turned on the two taps to mix some lukewarm water in the bath.

The Ladies stood at the end, watching the ocean-like water slowly crawling closer. “This feels like some sort of horror movie...” Kevin muttered, hiding at the back of the group.

“It’s not, Kev,” Ed strode forward confidently; “it’s just like being at the beach.” He toed the water’s edge, running back quickly as it approached as if he was playing in seaside surf.

All the Ladies slowly approached and took the plunge, foot-wise at least, into the water. Once it hit the far wall of the bath, Tiny off turned the taps. It now reached about 3cm up, roughly to the Ladies’ waists.

They were splashing about in it, or splashing each other under the guise of trying to wash their fellow band members, but no one was getting any bigger.

Tiny and Fin frowned down from on high.

“Maybe it needs something to get the stuff moving?” Tiny proposed.

“Moving?” Fin asked.

“Like soap gets dirt and grease moving.”

“Oh right.” All this bathroom had was one bar of cheap, soft hotel soap though. Tiny started on lathering it up into the water, “I’ll go check their stuff,” while Fin disappeared back into the main room. He returned in a minute, a couple of bottles in hand. “You don’t mind me borrowing these do you, Kevin?”

“Not if it gets us big again,” Kevin answered from where he was sculling around on his back in the middle of the bath.

Ed and Steve were standing in the slightly shallower end. They were studying the two bottles Fin had with him. One was shampoo; that was easy to see. The other one was... “What’s that one, Fin?” Steve asked, pointing to the one Fin was fiddling to open.

The cap popped, allowing Fin to turn and show it to them. “Hair conditioner.” Strawberry-scented.

Four of the Ladies broke out laughing. “You use _hair conditioner_ , Kevin?!” Steve howled with laughter.

Kevin folded his arms where he was floating. “Well, I don’t see your fans lining up to pet and stroke your hair so,” he punctuated his sentence with a stuck-out tongue and noise to match.

Huh. Steve looked like he might be starting to reconsider now.

Either way, Fin had poured a decent amount from both bottles into the water along with what lather Tiny had managed to create, since they might as well try everything together. The five Ladies swam towards the bubbles, which was more like entering a large, soapy fog for them, and disappeared.

“That stuff sure bubbles up well,” Tiny commented as he sat back to wait.

Fin checked the label again. “Kevin uses kids’ shampoo – ‘Extra bubbles, no tears formula’.”

“Well, you don’t want ‘the cute one’ having bloodshot eyes, I suppose,” Tiny offered, trying to sweep aside some of the bubbles to see.

He really didn’t need to though, since five small bodies were quickly rising and growing to meet him.

“All right! We did it!” Fin cheered, feeling he’d really earned his ‘disaster control’ bonus today, if only anyone would pay him it.

“That was surprisingly easy,” Tiny agreed, watching and then very quickly regretting his words. “Um, Fin. They’ve stopped.”

“What?”

“They’ve stopped growing.” The Ladies had indeed stopped growing, all five at the size of three or four feet. “And they look kind of...”

“Oh God.”

Five sets of eyes turned to him. Five small, 6-year-old sets of eyes.

This was a whole different kind of ‘tiny’.


	4. Chapter 9

“Who are you?”

“Why are we in a bath?”

“Stop shoving!”

“No, you stop shoving!”

“Where’s my mummy?! I want my mummy!”

It wasn’t hard to recognise the five as children; Steve and Ed were clinging to the closest edge, fascinated and investigating their surroundings. Jim and Tyler were wrestling and splashing about in the tiny amount of water in the tub having slipped over together. And Kevin, in complete disregard for everything his shampoo said, was bursting into tears where he sat on the plug.

Tiny intervened in Jim and Tyler’s fight simply by instinct, separating the boys and standing them back up. Kevin wouldn’t be stood back up or touched without wailing even louder for his mother so they left him sniffling there, clinging to the tap for safety. Steve and Ed were still just being curious, waiting for answers to their demanding questions and proddy fingers.

“Oh my God...” It was still all that Fin could say.

“I guess the chemicals in the soap and things reacted with whatever Tyler’s mixture was and somehow turned them into kids,” Tiny said, reverting to pragmatism and looking around for towels. “Who wants to be dried off first?” Four arms went up. Steve and Ed got into a new competition of who could get theirs higher.

While Tiny lifted Jim out first, since he’d taken the cheater’s option of trying to climb out by himself, Fin stared on in disbelief. “...They turned into children!” he objected.

“So?” Tiny asked, rubbing short, ginger hair dry.

“Children! 6-year-olds!” By the looks of it.

“Well, they already shrank to the size of mice,” Tiny said diplomatically; “I don’t see how them turning into children is any weirder.”

Fin sighed. He supposed it wasn’t, not with these five.

Between him, Tiny and the two hand towels provided they got the boys dried off and sat on the edge of the tub in ten minutes. Five of those were taken up by Kevin still crying and refusing to let anyone touch him until Ed climbed back into the tub to show him the ‘thumb separation trick’ older-Ed was equally fond of, the one where he used both thumbs and a finger to pretend he could separate the end of his one thumb and then reattach it with magic. Once Kevin was laughing and fascinated with that, he completely abandoned his stranger issues and consented to being dried off to sit on the edge of the tub with the rest.

Now Fin and Tiny stood over five boys sat naked together, some humming and off in their own little worlds, the others pointing at each other’s genitals and laughing.

To be honest, it wasn’t that much different to normal.

“What do we do this time?” Fin asked the genius that had gotten them into this new mess.

“Wait thirty years?” Tiny suggested with a bit of cheek before turning thoughtful. “I guess washing wouldn’t be any more use... I think we’re going to have to try mixing an antidote potion with the kit.” Fin groaned but the drum technician just shrugged. “Who do you want to be? Daddy or Dr. Frankenstein?”

Fin really had to consider that, now Tyler had learnt Kevin made a really funny wailing sound when you tried to push him off the edge of the tub. Steve and Ed weren’t much better, seeing who could tip back furthest without falling over. And Jim was getting that same antsy look he got as an adult when he needed to be set free in a field for a while to run around and frolic, or whatever weird things a Creeggan needed to do.

Fin eventually sighed. “I’ll play dad; from the looks of things,” Steve and Ed were back to comparing genitals, “it won’t be much harder than my usual job.”

“I’ll take the chemistry set to my room then,” Tiny proposed; “if I look at how much of each thing’s been used, I can probably guess what Tyler mixed together.”

That wasn’t a bad method actually. “Think you can make an antidote from that?”

“I can try,” was all Tiny could say.

And Fin could pray. It was quickly looking like he was going to have to call in a favour from above on this one.

“Oh. One more thing,” Fin said as Tiny headed for the door; “can you take the cat with you?” Five small heads – Well, Tyler still had a big head even as a kid, but it was smaller than normal – perked up instantly at the mention of an animal.

Tiny saw the point and nodded. “Have fun.” He left with a smile.

And left Fin with five little heaps of concentrated trouble.


	5. Chapter 10

“So who are you?” Fin still hadn’t gotten around to answering Ed’s question.

“I’m Fin. I’m, uh,” In way over his head, “looking after you for the next couple of hours.”

“Where’s our parents?” Steve asked.

“I’m babysitting for them.”

“All of them?” Even a 6-year-old knew when to be suspicious.

“Yeah, I’m a professional babysitter.” Not that far from the truth. “All your parents had to do stuff tonight so you all got dropped off here. We just had bath time and you guys were having so much fun I guess you forgot where you all were.”

Steve was still giving him that tiny frown.

“Well, how do _you_ think you got here?” Fin went on the offensive with him. To be honest, he was actually kind of fascinated by what was going on in the kids’ heads; they weren’t really freaking out much for this crazy situation.

After 30 seconds, all the kids gave up on trying to find another solution to that. None of them could remember anything about before, just suddenly being here with Fin and, “Who was that other guy?” Tyler asked.

“He, um, helps me out. But he had to go... do cleaning,” Fin made up on the spot. “Cleaning’s not fun so how about we do something fun while we wait?” That seemed to be acceptable. “Okay... First,” Fin wanted to check, “do you know each other?”

All five looked at each other, taking the time to inspect each other, but no one recognised anyone else.

“Right. How about we find you all some clothes and you can introduce yourselves to each other?”

“Do we _have_ to wear clothes?” Tyler whined.

“Yeah, this is fun!” Ed agreed.

“Jesus...” These five never changed. “Yes, you have to wear clothes.” They all whined. Thinking about what clothes were available though, unless he wanted to go back to the stores yet again, “what about if you all just wear T-shirts? Is that okay?” Kevin’s ought to come down to a length of decency on their little bodies at least.

The boys would begrudgingly agree to that, mainly because they were starting to get a little cold now.

Back in the main room, with one bed occupied by the bouncers of the group and the other for the sit-stillers, Fin went through Kevin’s suitcase once again, managing to find some clean shirts. “All right, let’s see...”

Ed became a ‘Skunk Saver’, Kevin got his favourite Scooby-Doo T-shirt since he wouldn’t settle for anything less, Steve and Tyler both refused the pink T-shirt and took some plain red and black button shirts instead, so that meant Jim got- “I don’t want that; it’s a girl shirt.” He refused the pink T-shirt too.

“Fine.” Since it probably wouldn’t be long enough for him anyway. “Pink button shirt... Purple and pink T-shirt... – Kevin really like girl colours – Bright orange T-shirt- No, that’ll clash with your hair-”

“That,” Jim said, pointing.

“What?”

“I want to wear that.”

Fin looked at ‘that’. “...You want to wear... **_that_**?” he said with appropriate disgust.

Jim nodded very firmly.

Well, fine, if it got him covered up...

Fin pulled out the horrendous neon magenta, turquoise and crimson floral abomination Kevin called a shirt and handed it to Jim. Jim slipped it on instantly, seeming very pleased. “How come that’s not a ‘girl shirt’?” Fin had to ask.

Jim pointed at one of the flowers. “It’s got blue.”

He couldn’t do the buttons alone so once Fin had helped with that, “There you go, you little eyesore,” he let Jim run back off to the designated bouncing bed. “You really have no fashion sense, do you, Jim Creeggan...?” Fin was left behind to mutter.

Now that there were four bouncers and only one Kevin sitting still, it looked like Fin needed a new plan before BNL managed to break yet another hotel bed with their antics – Again, don’t ask.

“Okay!” Fin clapped his hands together. It took a couple more claps to get everyone to stop bouncing and stand still on the wobbly mattress. “How about we all sit down quietly and still on the beds,” he suggested hopefully, “then go round and say our name and something we like?” The second might give him some ideas for when this brief one ran out. “How about you start?” he pointed to Tyler, still the loud-mouthed troublemaker.

“I’m Tyler! I like hockey ‘n pizza ‘n cookies!”

The boys seemed to proceed in natural progression from loudest to quietest. “I’m Ed. I like tag and running around but I also think computers are neat!”

“I’m Steve and I like TV or music, but I also like, um, anything that tastes good.”

“I’m Jim. I like running ‘cause I’m the best at it, or jigsaws when I can’t run.”

And finally, after an awkward moment from the other hotel bed, “I-I’m Kevin. I like Scooby-Doo...” He fiddled with his shirt. “And playing piano...”

Considering over half had picked sports, which they couldn’t really do here and now, it was too late and night for anything the kids would like on TV and too late to give them anything to eat, Fin was left casting about the room for ideas now time had run out. The boys were getting restless again. “...I know!” Fin eventually said, mainly out of the desperate hope it would help him get an idea. “How about...” He looked at the beds, “we build pillow forts?”

“Yeah!”

“Awesome!” They were already bouncing ready.

Or four were at least. “You don’t want to, Kevin?”

“I, um...” He shyly buried his hands in his lap and his gaze in the floor.

“It’s okay if you don’t want to,” Fin reassured him; “the teams would be unequal anyway so you can sit out.”

After a moment’s squirming, Kevin nodded.

“You like drawing?” Fin asked.

Kevin raised his head.

“I’ve got some stuff you can draw with. Here,” Holding out a hand, eventually Fin got Kevin to trust him and put his little hand in it. Helping the small Kevin off the bed, Fin found the drawing supplies the grown-up Kevin had bought and used earlier, setting this Kevin up in the room’s chair with them. “Okay?”

Kevin had curled up in the chair very tightly around the pad. He nodded though, clumsy little fingers sorting through the pencil box resting on his knees.

“Okay.” Fin had to go see to- “Oh God.”

“Storm the rampartments!”

“Nuh-uh! They’re barricades!”

“Barracudas?”

“No! Barricades!”

Fin groaned at the siege already in progress, Jim and Tyler attacking Ed and Steve’s bed from the floor with their soft armaments. It certainly didn’t take any encouragement for these four to get noisy and busy, though at least he’d been spared the inevitable, “I went to school with a Barry Cades; really tough guy,” joke that at least one of the band would have made if they were adults.

“Guys? Guys!” Fin tried in vain.

“Attack! Attack!”

“No fair jumping!”

“Bang! Right in the face!” Ed whirled round and hit Tyler pretty much right in the face, as he’d said.

Tyler’s response was to scrabble for Ed’s legs, trying to grab an ankle and trip him. His missed lunges hit the bed, unsettling the already choppy mattress. One particularly bad-timed lunge, combined with a swipe of Jim’s pillow in the duel he was engaged in and, “STEVE!”

“Wha-! AAHHH!”

Fin winced even before he heard the dull crack of skull on wooden bed frame.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're wondering what **_that_** shirt looks like [put on some sunglasses and check this out.](http://68.media.tumblr.com/268f97469e977f8aaf2490d02f412b33/tumblr_o3y49zVAaW1rifcego1_500.png)


	6. Chapter 11

With the other three kids frozen in terror, no more games now as they stared at the edge of the bed Steve had tumbled off, Fin stepped up to move round the bed, almost tentatively he was so afraid that, “Steve?”

A low whine answered him.

Steve was lying on the floor, curled up on one side in a ball with his head clutched. He started to sniffle when Fin crouched down in front of him. Not out cold at least. “Steve?”

Steve sniffled a bit louder.

“Hey. You okay, Steve?” Fin asked.

Steve was okay enough to shake his head at least.

“Can you sit up? Let me check your head.”

With some cajoling, Steve would sit up and move his hands a little from his head. Fin touched lightly, searching through Steve’s golden hair.

Three small, anxious faces appeared above the operation on the side of the bed. “...Is he okay?” Ed asked.

Fin found what he was hoping for; a little egg had formed on the back corner of Steve’s head. “Yeah, I think so.” It must have been a glancing blow, light enough only to damage the surface level. Working with these boisterous five for this long, Fin knew some basic signs of concussion to check for. Steve seemed okay, just a little teary around the eyes. “Just a bump.” Pages must have tough skulls.

“Sorry...” Jim owned up after a moment.

Ed and Tyler muttered apologies too.

Steve seemed too occupied to accept them, sulking in his pain, but he was bound to get over it soon. Until then, Fin tried to salvage at least one up-side; “How about we play something a bit less dangerous now? What else do you guys want to do?”

Steve wanted to sit and sulk. The other three were looking around the room for available resources. “Can we watch TV?” Tyler asked, pointing.

“Not at this time of night,” Fin told him. As much as this was adult-Tyler’s favourite time of TV, he really didn’t need these kids seeing an entirely different kind of Barenaked Lady right now. “Do you like card games?”

None of the three knew how to play any.

“Uh...” All Fin could spot was paper and Kevin’s pencils; tic-tac-toe wouldn’t keep them entertained for long though.

“How come your hair’s like that?” Tyler asked to Ed, distracted from their search for games. “You Jewish?”

“No. How come _your_ hair’s like _that_?” Ed asked back.

“My hair’s cool!” Tyler objected in his squeaky, child’s voice.

“It looks like a soccer ball.”

“It’s not!”

Oh God, now a game of wrestling was breaking out.

“Okay, you two,” Fin separated them easily enough by the back of their shirt necks. “No more fighting. I don’t want anyone _else_ getting hurt.” A low, sniffling mumble came from by his knees. “You two both like sports, right?” They nodded. “Well, why don’t you design your dream teams for a hockey game together?” He took Kevin’s spare pad and some pencils, blurting out the first idea he could think of in desperation, or exasperation, with these two.

The boys grabbed the pad, wrestling a bit before they got it down between them and a coloured pencil each to start loudly planning out their teams. That ought to hold them at least until they discussed who would win and got into another fight over that.

Right, four occupied. That only left, “Jim?”

Jim’s gaze eventually flicked up to him. He was still lying on the messed-up bed, watching the other two boys silently from afar. There was no desire to join in within him now.

“Time for you to do something alone?” Fin recognised that wordless observation of the world. It always made him wonder if Jim was some kind of angel or alien sent only to observe and report back though sometimes got too caught up in the fun of being with humans. But now he just sounded crazy thinking that.

Either way, after observing him with that creepy mysteriousness for a moment, Jim nodded.

“I’ve got a jigsaw in the other room,” Fin offered.

Jim perked up a bit.

“Hang on while I go fetch it.” After all, how much trouble could they cause left alone for just 30 seconds?

Thankfully, this time, none. Fin was able to return with the jigsaw box – adult-Jim had sensibly kept all the pieces in there while he was sorting through – and present it to the smaller Jim in the awfully horrendous shirt.

Jim hopped off the bed, instantly consumed, to establish a territory in the farthest corner of the room from anyone.

All five occupied. Finally!

Fin allows himself enough time for one sigh before checking again: Jim was studying the picture on the box whilst laying out pieces without even needing to look; Kevin was still curled up with armadillo-level defences around his sketchpad, scribbling away with only slightly less poise than normal; Tyler and Ed had actually managed to stay engaged in a discussion together about hockey players that was approaching constructive, and Steve was finally out of his sulk; he was looking around for something to do.

No rest for the wicked-ly underpaid tour manager...


	7. Chapter 12

“You okay now, Steve?” Fin crouched down to his height again.

Steve nodded.

“Do you want to do something?”

Another nod. Steve started looking around, taking in the four other engaged boys but seeing nowhere he wanted to join in. “Can I watch TV?” he pointed to the TV in the room.

“It doesn’t work,” Fin lied.

“Then why do you still have it in here?” Steve frowned.

“You like music, right?” Fin changed the subject. “Do you want to listen to some music?” That was deemed an acceptable alternative to be offered. “All right, hang on here then.” Fin got back up and headed to Kevin’s suitcase once more again.

Kevin really was proving useful this ‘adventure’, or his stuff at least. He might complain about it once he was back to normal, if they did get back to normal, but his was a worthy sacrifice that would not be forgotten. Not by Fin at least.

Then again, it was his shampoo and conditioner that had gotten them into this second mess. If the fact he used kids’ shampoo had anything to do with the fact they were children now...

Untangling the headphones, Fin pulled Kevin’s – technically Jim’s but Kevin had appropriated it for so long squatters’ rights had kicked in – portable CD player from his bag and checked the CD in it wasn’t something horrendous before taking it back to Steve.

_Trunks_? Why had Kevin been listening to a Brothers Creeggan CD? At least it was only the CD and not the full album case, with all the awkward questions that picture on the front might raise.

Anyway, he got back to Steve and slipped the headphones over his ears, careful to avoid the bump at the back. He set it playing – and no, he didn’t have any Beach Boys CDs instead – until Steve insisted the first track was boring. And the second. They kept going until, “This one.” Well, whatever track 6 was on the album Fin was going to have to thank Jim for it later; Steve was bopping side-to-side happy finally.

Ed and Tyler were still talking hockey – Fin didn’t really know; it sounded as if it had drifted away from real hockey quite a few tangents back – Jim was still picking at jigsaw pieces, a fractured frame of edges starting to form, and Kevin... still drawing. He sure loved that pad.

Fin was just glad for the rest sitting by Steve, watching the CD spin inside the player and the numbers climb. Once it hit 3:10 though- “Go back.”

“What?”

“I want to listen to that track again,” Steve insisted, pointing at the buttons on the player.

“All right.” Fin dutifully pressed the back arrow.

Steve returned to bopping his head side-to-side.

...It was strange. Steve hadn’t seemed confused about the CD player when Fin brought it over. Either he knew what it was or was taking it in-stride very well. The same with a lot of stuff going on. Kids were, Fin supposed, adaptable to any situation you put them with little hassle on the whole.

Still curious though, he leant his head back to listen.

Dionne, Henderson, Lafleur – Those were 70s hockey names, from when Ed and Tyler had been roughly 6 then.

What was going on inside their little brains? It was kind of fascinating.

Fin needed rest more than an answer to that though. He sat back and closed his eyes for a while, only needing to move each time Steve prodded him to repeat the track again – Kids...

After a while though, in one of his occasional checks of the room, he got to watch something quite interesting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Track 6 on Trunks is 'Goin' to the Forest', one of my Brothers Creeggan favourites.


	8. Chapter 13

“Hey.”

No reply.

“Hey?”

Still no reply.

“...Whatcha drawin’?”

Kevin’s current crayon, a lovely emerald green, had stopped the instant he saw Jim approaching him. Now he raised the pad in front of his face, between him and the other boy leaning on the arm of his armchair. “...Leaves.”

“Just leaves?” Jim asked, trying to lean higher on the arm and see. Despite easily being the tallest boy, he was still thwarted by the fact the arm was as high as his shoulders and hard to climb onto.

Kevin shook his head, and the pad with it in front of him. “...They’re on a tree.”

“What kind of tree?”

Kevin didn’t answer. He moved the pad away from his face to look at it, as if unsure himself. Eventually he just said, “Big ones.”

Jim had given up trying to climb the chair. He had hoisted his upper chest onto the arm and seemed content to dangle there instead, small but skinny feet a few inches off the floor. “You like climbing trees?”

Kevin nodded. “Mum doesn’t. ...My Mum doesn’t like me climbing them,” he added with an adult-like awareness his first sentence had been ambiguous.

Jim just kicked his legs together, unsure what to say.

Kevin took to hiding his face behind his pad again.

“...Do you like jigsaws?” Jim asked. He sounded enthusiastic but just in a trying-to-be-friendly way. “I got a really cool one from the weird guy looking after us.” Fin frowned; he knew who was getting roomed with Tyler’s snoring next hotel stop. “It’s got polar bears on it!”

Almost mole-like, Kevin appeared from behind his pad again. “Polar bears are cool,” he admitted.

“You know they cover their nose with their paw to disguise it in the snow?”

“Really?”

“Yeah! Like this!”

Fin saw that bump coming when Jim used one hand to cover his nose, lost his grip on the chair’s arm and fell onto the carpeted floor butt-first. At least you didn’t get egg-lumps down there, as he set track 6 going once again for Steve.

Finally lowering his sketchpad, Kevin peered over the edge of the chair’s arm. “Are you okay?”

Jim was rubbing his butt, but when Kevin appeared above him he looked up and grinned one of his wide, face-stretching ones. “Yep!”

Kevin actually smiled a bit.

And then he climbed down from his chair to help Jim up.

Somewhere along the way, Jim must have gotten a look at Kevin’s preciously protected sketchpad because once he was back up, “You’re really good at drawing!” he pointed and said.

Kevin hugged it back to his chest, picture hidden again. Then, after a few moments, he relented and held it out, not minding when Jim moved round to look. “...It’s a secret base,” he eventually volunteered. “It’s suspended between the trees by ropes.”

“That’s so cool!”

Like a plant finally getting sunlight, Kevin’s smile started to grow. He started talking about entry mechanics, defence systems – What kind of enemies did 6-year-old Kevin think he had to keep out? – until Jim couldn’t have got him to stop if he wanted to.

Sometime around the point Jim and Kevin had started going through the other drawings in the pad – “Did you do these too?” “No, but they’re cool, aren’t they? I want to know who did do them!” – Fin felt a tap on his shoulder.

He turned around to Ed and Tyler lying on the bed right behind him, both looking down at Steve and the CD player. “Whatcha listening to?” Ed asked.

“Uhh...” Fin could hardly say the band name, not within earshot of Jim at least. “Did you want to listen too?”

Both of the other boys nodded.

Fin looked for speakers on the CD player but it didn’t look to have a stereo setting. He stopped the track when it got to 3:10 again anyway, taking the headphones off Steve. “Okay. Um...” No stereo in the hotel room either. If they wanted music- “Hang on one minute.” Fin rushed to the pile of abandoned, slightly soggy clothing still on the floor. He found a room key inside one of the pockets of Ed’s trousers then rushed out to the corridor to make use of it. By the time he got back, the worst the kids had gotten up to this time was bouncing on the bed again; Steve seemed to have completely forgotten about his earlier near-catastrophe and was probably bouncing the highest of all. “Okay, I can-”

“OH COOL!”

“GUITAR!”

Four small hands pulled the guitar from him before he’d even gotten the door shut again. It was just a spare acoustic the band had on the bus for throwing ideas about, or more often making up dirty improv songs at 3am. At least it wouldn’t matter if Steve and Ed pulled it apart, which was what they seemed intent on doing, fighting over it now they had gotten it free from Fin.

“It’s too big for either of you,” Fin declared, prying it free from the scuffle through his advantage of height; “I’ll play it. You can sing.”

That didn’t stop the fight; it just evolved it into, “Beach Boys!”

“Neil Young!”

“Led Zeppelin!”

“We’re singing The Beatles and liking it,” Fin unilaterally decided, as being a drummer the best he could do for was to play some random chords in roughly the right order.

Fin took his seat on the edge of the bed, ignoring all requests as he got the guitar back in-tune – What had they been doing to this thing? – It only took a few notes for heads to shoot up across the room, in the corner where Kevin had joined Jim in the middle of his massive jigsaw pile. His sketchpad completely forgotten, the thing Kevin clung to this time was Jim’s hand, dragging the other boy over with him to the semi-circle around Fin and the guitar.

Not knowing the chords barely mattered once the kids got bawling the lyrics out to various Beatles songs without regard for where one song started and the other ended.

Things certainly got interesting when Kevin’s attempt at ‘Blackbird’ led to him breaking out his full choirboy voice, startling all the others and then himself when they stared. He moved behind Jim where he couldn’t be teased, or so he had hoped.

“Your voice is higher than my sister’s!”

“You’re meant to sing like that!”

“You sound like a mouse!”

“Or a cat!”

“Do not!”

“Guys! Guys?!” Fin tried louder and louder, even adding some strumming to try and get attention back before yet _another_ fight broke out.

But then, glibly from the door, “Are we planning a kids’ album in here?”

Fin looked up. “Oh, thank God!”

Though yet to be dressed as God on-stage for another few tours, Rob ‘Tiny’ Menegoni with beakers of chemicals in hand could certainly take that title right now anyway to Fin.


	9. Chapter 14

“No kids’ albums,” Fin abandoned breaking up the fight to speak to Tiny; “not for a few more years at least.” Together they could separate things so the worst attacks were simply sharp stickings out of tongues between the boys. “Is that it then?” Fin pointed to the small beakers Tiny had. “An antidote?”

“Well, maybe,” Tiny admitted, swilling one around. “I worked out what Tyler mixed together, and bothered to read the instruction manual unlike him,” Luckily the small Tyler present didn’t seem to notice his name being said. “I mixed together what ingredients I think cancel out, going by the manual, and the nicest smelling ones, since Tyler mixed together the worst-smelling ones, then added some of Kevin’s shampoo and conditioner to reverse the aging effects too.”

“And you think that’ll work?”

“I have about 0.1% faith that it will,” Tiny declared with a smile, “but it’s the best shot I could give it.”

“Well, let’s hope that’s enough,” Fin said.

“If not, maybe their parents will look forward to getting to raise them again.” Tiny tried to stay on the bright side.

“Maybe they can do a better job this time to prevent things like this happening again...” After an hour or so with these hellions, Fin was finding that bright side thing a bit hard.

They set the beakers to one side for the moment, with the guitar, for one other thing Tiny wanted to try, “Since they’re so cute right now.” With a quick, “Cheese!” he lifted the Polaroid camera he’d also brought, snapping the five sitting on the floor together mostly behaved – Tyler was trying to climb on Steve slightly to get into the middle of the picture – and nearly all with hopelessly over-smiled grins; at least Kevin’s had come out small and adorable.

After that, it was beaker time.

“What’s that?” Ed asked as they watched the adults approach with them.

“It’s a potion that’ll make you big, strong men without needing to eat your vegetables,” Tiny said, giving Fin a quick wink – he really did think of everything – “Do you want to try it?”

“I do!” Tyler volunteered first, scrambling to his feet and trotting over. “I hate vegetables.”

“All right, I’m going to pour this on you, okay?” Tiny warned.

Tyler nodded.

Everyone, Fin included, leant in slightly as they watched.

Aside from a slight grimace at the cold, sliminess of the potion, Tyler didn’t seem adverse to it splashing over his head and then dripping onto his body. It certainly smelt nicer than the last stuff.

Everyone waited, most of all Tyler examining his hands and flexing his arms inside his shirt, hoping for some more muscle.

And then it started working.

Arms filling out, legs growing longer, hair sadly receding, until, after a strange few moments-

“Oh my God, I could kiss you!”

Tiny laughed at Fin’s near-fainting relief at seeing Tyler returned to full size. “Just give me the nice hotel room next time and a better vegetarian option than stuffed peppers from catering.”

“Done,” Fin agreed, checking Tyler had stopped at back to normal, that he wasn’t going to keep growing to colossal sizes or age another 30 years.

Tyler was checking himself over too. “I’m big again! You fixed it!”

“Yep,” his faithful drum tech nodded, getting the next beaker ready.

“So what happened to...” Tyler had turned his head round. “...Holy shit.”

“Yeah,” was all Fin could say about the four child-Ladies still waiting.

“Please tell me you mixed LSD into that thing.”

“Nope.”

“...Holy shit,” Tyler said again.

“Tyler?” the little Ed asked. “What’s it like being big?”

“Um... High,” Tyler eloquently decided before turning to the other two remaining adults. “What happened?”

“Blame Kevin ‘Fancy Hair’ Hearn over there,” Fin muttered before asking for their next volunteer.

Ed was up next, growing back to full size just like Tyler. It might have looked painful to go through, their limbs all suddenly stretching out and bones shifting into new places, but as two could now report it felt fine from the inside, just slightly disorienting maybe.

Or maybe that was looking round and seeing, “Holy smokes!”

“Yep.” They went through the same thing with Ed again.

Maybe it’d be easier to get them all big and then explain this.

Steve followed Ed. Jim followed Steve.

Then finally- “Can’t we keep him like this?” Steve defended, all of them clustering around the child-Kevin attached to Jim’s leg. “He’s really cute.”

“He seems really fond of my leg too,” Jim noted, giving it a fruitless shake.

Kevin was sat firm down by Jim’s left foot, clinging on to the man-version of his new-found best friend.

“And the shows?” Fin pointed out.

Ed thought, then crouched down with inspiration. “Hey,” He got Kevin’s attention; “can you play any instruments, little guy?”

“Piano... a little...”

“See?” Ed pointed at the tiny pianist. “He could play piano bits! We could say Kevin’s ill and his nephew’s filling in!”

It only took a few moments of Fin’s folded-arms, firm stare for the band to concede they needed their keyboard player back to full, slightly less cute, size.

With a little help from Jim, to get the limpet off his leg, they managed to douse Kevin in the antidote too despite his wriggling about the weird perfumey smell and sliminess. After a few moments, Kevin grew back up too – Well, physically at least – completing the set.

A set of five full-sized, properly-aged, pant-less Barenaked Ladies.

The only thing they were missing, aside from half of their clothing, was an explanation.


	10. Chapter 15

“We were all kids?” Kevin asked, as the last to change back.

“Yep.” Tiny handed him the fresh Polaroid as proof.

The band clustered around it, with plenty of ‘aw’ sounds and teasing as they pointed at the other members.

“Anyway, thank Tiny for getting you back,” Fin continued, now sat on the bed with exhaustion. “Do you not remember any of being kids?”

Five shook their heads. Then,

“My head’s full of 1970s hockey players,” Tyler said.

“Mine too,” Ed agreed.

“I have one of Jim’s solo songs stuck in my head, and it hurts – Those are two separate things, Jim,” Steve hurriedly corrected.

Jim didn’t seem to pay it any mind. “I don’t remember my jigsaw being in here, or having that many pieces done, so it would explain that,” he said instead, looking at the little grey snowdrift of cardboard squares in the corner.

Kevin though- “Why’s everyone wearing my shirts?!” It was as if everyone else just noticed their state of half-undress and ill-fitting shirts at that moment too. “And look! Half of them are ripped now!” He pointed in the direction of Tyler and Steve particularly, being much large-built than Kevin himself.

“I’ll buy you new shirts, Kevin,” Fin assured him, just to shut up the slightly nasal squawking of the pissed-off Hearn. “Your suitcase was already open and I didn’t fancy digging through Ty’s, all right?”

Kevin grumbled but he accepted it, even as the ripped shirts came back to him from Tyler and Steve, and the one from Ed which hadn’t ripped but was still too stretched out to wear any longer on him.

“Great...” Kevin muttered, turning to Jim. “Well, at least I don’t need to worry about you ripping yours.”

“Nope,” Jim agreed cheerfully. It was baggy on Kevin, let alone Jim.

“...Are you going to give it back?” Kevin assumed, waiting on his eyesore of a shirt to be handed over.

Jim hummed as he smoothed his hands down his chest – Kevin really didn’t want to dwell on how sensuous the movement looked – and then folded them. “No, I like it.”

“It’s my shirt!” Kevin squeaked in protest.

Jim did that hand-smoothing thing again. “It’s silky,” was all he said.

“That’s why I kept it after the infomercial shoot; give it back!”

Kevin dived on Jim.

Jim, laughing, fought him off as they tussled and wrestled on the floor.

And the other five in the room stood around to watch.

“Aren’t you going to help?!” Kevin eventually yelled in a high-pitched tone.

They all stood still, watching the two men on the floor who were fighting intimately in just their shirts and no other clothes. As Tyler said, “Eh, porn’s porn.”

“We’re not-!” Kevin was cut off by Jim’s laughter.

Eventually the shirt came off Jim – Only after it had been ripped and thus Jim had surrendered it as unwearable – and left a very stressy, half-dressed Kevin sat on his own by his suitcase, packing everything back in that Fin had decided was free game to use over the past few hours.

Everyone else stood around naked, aside from Tiny and Fin – So pretty standard really – discussing what to do now.

“About what?” Tyler asked.

“About the chemistry set for one,” Tiny started. “Another experiment and you might end up as women or with clones.”

Tyler grumbled one of those wouldn’t be too bad but he eventually agreed.

“And what about the cat?” Fin asked. “You’re not keeping it.”

“Oh man, I forgot about that!” Ed sighed. “I guess we drop him- her-”

“‘Him’,” Kevin insisted from over in his sulk-corner.

“ _Him_ , off at a vet or somewhere tomorrow? From the way my cats yowl when we take them to the vet in the car,” Ed continued, “I imagine he wouldn’t enjoy a tour bus much.”

“I’ll go find a vet and re-dispose of the chemistry set then,” Tiny said, leaving the room.

That left Fin and the Barenaked Ladies- “Seriously, guys; wait here while I get you some clothes again...”

That left just the Barenaked Ladies.

Kevin was still sulking but it was more just a point of honour now, even when the others tried to console him or offer him some of their spare shirts.

Eventually Fin came back with enough clothes for Steve, Ed and Jim, and Tyler was convinced to get into his clothes that had been in here all along. “So, can I leave you alone now? No more crazy experiments or magic potions?” Fin asked, ready to leave.

“Nope,” Ed agreed. “Just ~raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens~”

“~Bright copper kettles and warm, woollen mittens~” the rest of the band, aside from Kevin, joined in.

Fin froze in the doorway, eventually daring to look back at the four smugly grinning guys.

“You thought we forgot about that?” Jim asked.

“We turned the TV off while you were out cold,” Steve added, “but even being kids again didn’t make us forget that.”

Fin swallowed visibly.

“But since you did get us back to full size,” Ed conceded, “we’ll pretend we forgot it when we were kids.”

“Thanks, guys,” Fin mumbled sheepishly, ducking out with a blush still on his cheeks.

And so that all ended very well.

~#~

The chemistry set was disposed of that night, thankfully without shrinking or de-aging the toilet into a bidet when Tiny flushed it away.

The cat was dropped off at a nearby vet the next day, one that could get him home to Dallas. Ed named him ‘Maria Von Trapp’ for the trip back until they found his owner and learnt his real name.

And Kevin?

At the end of the next day, despite having had a show to play, the four other Ladies presented Kevin with some newly bought shirts – with the tags to prove it – as well as some more art supplies and a stuffed, grey cat as goodwill gestures. After all that, Kevin could hardly fail to be happy and cheered back up for the rest of the tour.

Especially not after he poured some of the spare antidote he’d stolen onto the stuffed cat once he got home, producing an elephant-sized cat to sleep on every night.

Because sometimes it’s just nice to be a little, tiny Ladie.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bet you'd forgotten about the Sound of Music thing; Fin certainly had :D
> 
> A big thanks to Coneycat for starting this fic. I have no idea where you would have taken this fic so if you ever read this, I hope you don't mind where I took it. It was a lot of fun building on someone else's story for a change.


End file.
